


Among Strangers

by gorseflower



Category: The Americans (TV 2013)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 05:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8831788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorseflower/pseuds/gorseflower
Summary: She knew she couldn't really escape. She'd chosen her fate long ago. Missing scenes from 'Travel Agents'.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selena/gifts).



Martha closed her eyes as the woman who'd pretended to be Jennifer guided her back to the car. Perhaps there were strangers hiking nearby who found them an unusual sight, one woman wet-faced and bent over with pain, the other helping her to shuffle along. If there were, Martha didn't think about them -- they were for Jennifer to worry about now. She knew they wouldn't see how tightly Jennifer was gripping her arm.

  
"Clark's coming?" Martha asked as Jennifer helped her into the front seat of the car.

  
"I'll get a message to him as soon as we're back at the safe house," said Jennifer firmly. She smiled -- kind but slightly strained -- but there was none of the fake friendliness which all Martha's questions had slid off the day before. Questions flashed into Martha's head -- a telephone message? some kind of radio? -- but she let them go. No answer would change what she could do.

  
She pulled the seatbelt around her waist then immediately let it go with a wince when it touched the place where Jennifer had hit her. The sting didn't even have time to recede before Martha felt it come back, and she realized to her surprise that Jennifer was touching her rib. She pushed her hand away angrily, forgetting the pain for a moment, and then sank back into the seat.

  
"I'll take a proper look at that when we're back at the house," said Jennifer calmly, as though it had nothing to do with her. "I have medical training, and so does Gabriel."

  
Martha didn't reply, but watched numbly as Jennifer closed the door, locked it and walked around to the driver's side. When she put her hand on the gear, Martha noticed that it was trembling. Martha thought of things she'd read about internal bleeding, and with a strong suspicion that she knew the answer she said:

  
"If I need the ER, will you take me?"

  
"That won't be necessary. I've been well-trained."

  
The bare trees half-obscured the gray sky. They joined the highway at the familiar junction, and the view of the woods was replaced by countless other cars. They turned off at a junction Martha didn't recognize and drove through seemingly endless suburban streets, all rather like the one Clark had brought her to. Now and then she saw people outside walking their dogs, unpacking groceries from their cars.

  
It wouldn't be hard to lean out of the window and shout that she was being kidnapped by the KGB, grab Jennifer's hands from the steering wheel, disrupt everything. They'd think she was mad, but they'd call the police, and then ... Martha couldn't imagine what prison would be like, but she could imagine her parents' faces if they knew she'd betrayed the country they were so proud of her for serving. It was better to go quietly now, so that they would never know the truth. And she'd have a chance to see Clark again. So she closed her eyes, and waited to be told what to do.

 

Martha left the door to her room open, but even so she could barely hear what was going on downstairs: a few footsteps, some murmuring that could have been English or Russian, she couldn't tell. The house seemed to swallow up all sound. She sat down on the bed, shaking, then buried her face in the pillow and cried.

  
Weeks later, when she thought back over the events of those two days, she realized that Gabriel or Jennifer must have been listening in somehow, because the knock on the door came too soon after she fell silent for it to be chance. At the time, she just sat up and blinked as Gabriel walked in with a plate of sandwiches and a mug on a tray.

  
"You should eat. You'll only feel worse if you don't."

  
He put the tray down on the table and Martha looked at it blankly, then looked up at him. He was already leaving.

  
"Are you Russian?" she said suddenly. He turned around and looked at her with an expression that was hard to read. He might have been surprised.

  
"Yes. I was sent to the United States to serve my country. As was Jennifer, and of course, Clark. We've worked together for many years."

  
Martha bit her lip. "How do you speak like that?"

  
"We were trained. It's something of a gift."

  
The Clark Martha had married had failed Spanish twice in high school, back in Nebraska, the same year his father died in a car wreck. Every time she remembered something that couldn't be true she felt a small loss, as another part of what she and Clark had shared crumbled away. She wanted him back more than ever -- the past and the future didn't matter when he was there.

  
"Do you know where Clark is now?"

  
"He's on his way here, right now. I have to be honest, Martha, you made things very difficult for him by running off like that. All we want is to keep you both safe."

  
"You don't care about Clark. If you did, you'd ... you'd let him be with his wife, you wouldn't send him away..." Martha felt anger well up inside her again. All those times Clark had phoned her hours before a date or a trip, said he had to work-- had he been with this man then, or with the woman downstairs? Did they make him sit and drink tea with them in houses like this, while she sat at home alone?

  
"Clark is a patriot. He chose to do this work, long ago. But he wouldn't want you to put yourself in danger."

  
Martha snorted. "You don't know what Clark wants."

  
"I've known Clark far longer than you have, Martha. You and he have done outstanding work together, and I've always defended your relationship... you realize, of course, that his superiors didn't always approve? He's putting a lot on the line for you. So please repay us with some basic co-operation."

  
KGB, Martha thought with a shiver, as she looked into his cold eyes. She knew it was a threat, but it didn't matter much if they threatened her now. This house wasn't the real trap -- she'd been trapped for years, gladly. Maybe ever since Clark's first visit to her apartment.

  
"I want to know what you think, Martha," he'd said, smiling, and as he'd asked her intelligent questions about the reports she was expected to type without understanding, and brushed aside her protests that she couldn't criticize her boss, she'd realized he really meant it in a way no other men did.

  
She'd followed him every step of the way, into the hidden marriage, into lying to her parents and betraying her colleagues. Her old friends had drifted away as he'd led her into a secret world she could never discuss with them. Clark had offered her the one thing missing from the life in the city which she'd worked so hard to build, and in the end, as that life became ever duller without him, she'd chosen him every time. And even though she knew now what he was, she felt proud when Gabriel spoke of him so highly.

  
"Don't worry," she said, knowing he wouldn't understand. "I'm not going anywhere."


End file.
